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Dean View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 15 2013 at 12:04
Originally posted by CPicard CPicard wrote:

Fun fact: yesterday, the French-German TV channel Arte broadcasted two documentaries about the false "green energies".
Question: am I the only one to think that describing biomass/biofuel as a renewable energy is most stupid and nonsensical?
No, I don't think you are alone in thinking that. The whole point of sequestering carbon in a biomass is to keep it there, not to release it back out again.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 01:58
I guess going green wasn't enough.

Does anyone remember how right after 9/11, all airplanes were ground in at least the U.S. as far as I recall, and just from no planes in the sky, which use a ton of oil, the skies that week were clearer than they had been in years.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0520-05.htm



Just imagine if we had a no-driving day, like on Saturdays or Sundays. Although, maybe we need no-driving weeks, once a month, to really make a difference in less than 30 years.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 02:04
Originally posted by darkshade darkshade wrote:

Does anyone remember how right after 9/11, all airplanes were ground in at least the U.S. as far as I recall, and just from no planes in the sky, which use a ton of oil, the skies that week were clearer than they had been in years.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0520-05.htm

Or not.
 


Edited by Dean - May 20 2013 at 02:04
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 02:16
Well my point was we need to make drastic changes, like limiting the amount of driving we humans do, and we have to do it yesterday.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 02:23
Originally posted by darkshade darkshade wrote:

Well my point was we need to make drastic changes, like limiting the amount of driving we humans do, and we have to do it yesterday.


Well, we may be f**ked thenLOL
It's all quite a shame. I do agree, the developing nations of the world, in theory, should have various restrictions and limits to grow in a sustainable way, while we ALL need major shifts in our daily lives.
Plus research into more "green" energy and not fossil fuels.

Sadly, I don't even need to explain the many  extreme difficulties in reality with all of that.

Even nuclear power, which isn't such a bad idea honestly, is viewed as the devil.
Much of it being misinformed so even things we can do now have little chance of increased implementation.



Edited by JJLehto - May 20 2013 at 02:24
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 02:46
Originally posted by JJLehto JJLehto wrote:

Well, we may be f**ked thenLOL



...in all honesty, we are. The only question left is how f**ked we are.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 04:26
There are apparently too many people. Prof John P Holdren suggested that sterilants could be put into the food and water supply to reduce fertility, and programs of forced sterilisation, abortion and vasectomy could be implemented in the third world, along the lines of past Chinese models to bring global population numbers down. He wrote about it in his 1975 book 'Ecoscience' He also suggested that birthing licenses could be issued to women based on their age, general health and genetic pre-dispoistion to serious illness, and these licences could be marketed through the private sector. He was just 'brainstorming' but he is now Obama's science Tzar, so who knows his type may get their way and save us all from ourselves. Praise be to the party!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 05:11
Originally posted by Gamemako Gamemako wrote:

Originally posted by JJLehto JJLehto wrote:

Well, we may be f**ked thenLOL



...in all honesty, we are. The only question left is how f**ked we are.
Pretty much. The ecosystem will sort itself out, it always has done, the Earth has been hotter, it has been colder, it has had higher CO2 levels and it has had higher O2 levels, the climate has been more hostile and it has been more temperate, life has had bigger and more widespread extinctions and its had huge species explosions - the Eath and its ecosystem is never static and constantly changes. Gaia will achieve a new equilibrium and life will go on, albeit without a dominant intelligent species that triggered the latest change.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 06:41
Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

There are apparently too many people. Prof John P Holdren suggested that sterilants could be put into the food and water supply to reduce fertility, and programs of forced sterilisation, abortion and vasectomy could be implemented in the third world, along the lines of past Chinese models to bring global population numbers down. He wrote about it in his 1975 book 'Ecoscience' He also suggested that birthing licenses could be issued to women based on their age, general health and genetic pre-dispoistion to serious illness, and these licences could be marketed through the private sector. He was just 'brainstorming' but he is now Obama's science Tzar, so who knows his type may get their way and save us all from ourselves. Praise be to the party!


Far too many people. Isaac Asimov once said that this planet can support about two billion people all living a modern 'western' lifestyle. We passed two billion about ninety years ago, and we passed four billion in about 1974, and we'll pass eight billion in about another fourteen years or so. (It seems like the population is doubling about every fifty years, but this is a temporary thing)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 07:16
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:


Originally posted by Gamemako Gamemako wrote:


Originally posted by JJLehto JJLehto wrote:

Well, we may be f**ked thenLOL
...in all honesty, we are. The only question left is how f**ked we are.

Pretty much. The ecosystem will sort itself out, it always has done, the Earth has been hotter, it has been colder, it has had higher CO2 levels and it has had higher O2 levels, the climate has been more hostile and it has been more temperate, life has had bigger and more widespread extinctions and its had huge species explosions - the Eath and its ecosystem is never static and constantly changes. Gaia will achieve a new equilibrium and life will go on, albeit without a dominant intelligent species that triggered the latest change.


Sorry if you've been asked before. Out of interest, do you believe that anthropogenic global warming is real?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 07:32
Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

There are apparently too many people. 
 
You've hit the nail on the head there Andy.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 07:37
Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

There are apparently too many people. 

 

You've hit the nail on the head there Andy.


I don't necessarily share the view though....
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 07:45
There are too many people eating too much of the food that too many other people are having to survive without. There's plenty of food for all, but it's in the wrong places.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 07:49
Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

There are apparently too many people. 

 

You've hit the nail on the head there Andy.


I don't necessarily share the view though....
Oops sorry. I'll check with you again the next time we're trying to fight our way to the Coal Hole bar on a Friday night. Wink
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 07:51
All the food that gets wasted in America in one day could probably stop world hunger for 6-8 months. Work in a restaurant for a week and watch how much food gets thrown out, either by people not finishing their meals, or by food not being sold, and those are just the 2 big reasons.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 08:15
Originally posted by Stool Man Stool Man wrote:

There are too many people eating too much of the food that too many other people are having to survive without. There's plenty of food for all, but it's in the wrong places.


That's not a problem with population size. That's a problem with food distribution, or more specifically food politics and economics. There is more than enough food to go round, and as scientific approaches to intensive farming continue to progress there will be all the more.

The challenge, in my opinion is not the size of global population, which in some regions is actually in significant decline, but ensuring the blocks to people in poor countries getting the food they need are removed, be they political, enviornmental etc etc.. North Korea is a good example where their leadership is happy to let it's population starve rather than accept aid from the US, in return for compromises with it's military programmes. Kissenger advocated using 'food as a weapon' and one can spin the NK scenario in whiuchever way you choose to show either the US or NK in a bad light, but it is an example of people being held to ransom by the supply of a plentiful food supply.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 08:16
Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

There are apparently too many people. 

 

You've hit the nail on the head there Andy.
I don't necessarily share the view though....

Oops sorry. I'll check with you again the next time we're trying to fight our way to the Coal Hole bar on a Friday night. Wink


Yeah ok, London early on a Friday evening may be exception...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 08:52
Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:


Sorry if you've been asked before. Out of interest, do you believe that anthropogenic global warming is real?
Honest answer is "I don't know" - I believe we are contributary, but are not necessarily the cause. I think the cause is natural but we are making it much worse. The Earth's climate and ecosystem is never static and never actually achieves a steady-state equilibrium where CO2 output from animals is completely balanced by O2 output from plants.
 
The "Gaia" reference in my post is a nod towards the Gaia Hypothesis even though I don't actually believe it is real - the shifting balance between animals and plants is not a goal seeking evolution, it's just what happens naturally and it isn't as finely-tuned as the Gaia Hypothesis proponets would suggest (in technical terms it is under-damped) - the planet cannot support a major imbalance so as one begins to dominate the penduluum swings back the other way.We have "survived" two or three of these periods of high concentrations of CO2 since we first fell out of the tree on the African savanha - they normally kill off megafauna who need high O2 levels in the atmosphere to survive (Though we have been blamed for that too - which is surprising given the human population size at that time). On geological time-scales these fluctuations can be very extreme with wide ranges of temperature and atmosphere composition.
 
I suspect (and the long-term data from ice-cores suggests this) that we have arrived at an unfortunate co-incidence of one of these natural swings away from O2 breathers at the same time as we as a species have started producing more CO2 than we would naturally do as an animal of our current population size.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 09:37
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:


Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:


Sorry if you've been asked before. Out of interest, do you believe that anthropogenic global warming is real?

Honest answer is "I don't know" - I believe we are contributary, but are not necessarily the cause. I think the cause is natural but we are making it much worse. The Earth's climate and ecosystem is never static and never actually achieves a steady-state equilibrium where CO2 output from animals is completely balanced by O2 output from plants.
 
The "Gaia" reference in my post is a nod towards the Gaia Hypothesis even though I don't actually believe it is real - the shifting balance between animals and plants is not a goal seeking evolution, it's just what happens naturally and it isn't as finely-tuned as the Gaia Hypothesis proponets would suggest (in technical terms it is under-damped) - the planet cannot support a major imbalance so as one begins to dominate the penduluum swings back the other way.We have "survived" two or three of these periods of high concentrations of CO2 since we first fell out of the tree on the African savanha - they normally kill off megafauna who need high O2 levels in the atmosphere to survive (Though we have been blamed for that too - which is surprising given the human population size at that time). On geological time-scales these fluctuations can be very extreme with wide ranges of temperature and atmosphere composition.
 
I suspect (and the long-term data from ice-cores suggests this) that we have arrived at an unfortunate co-incidence of one of these natural swings away from O2 breathers at the same time as we as a species have started producing more CO2 than we would naturally do as an animal of our current population size.


I'm inclined to agree with pretty much all of that.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 20 2013 at 14:37
Just some of my random thoughts on this topic:

Birthrates fall as countries become 'developed' so population growth should eventually slow down if all countries become 'developed'. Although of course people in developed countries live longer which creates different kinds of social and economic problems.

I'm not sure if it's possible for all the planet's nations to be 'developed' at the same time if we continue the same kind of exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor practices because we want cheap consumer goods.

Previously developed countries might collapse economically (some say this is happening in Greece now). But I wonder what the mental effect on people is... if you were born and raised in a developing country then you would be less aware of what living in a developed country is like. But if you are living in a country that was previously 'rich' but has now become 'poor' then how does that influence you mentally?

Here in Japan many people seem very apathetic because they feel that Japan's 'golden days' are in the past and never coming back. People seem very apathetic about the future. They still enjoy their lives but seem to have lost their ambition and drive (I'm not saying this is a 'good' or 'bad' thing because I'm not sure). And Japan is 'officially' the world's third largest economy and a 'rich' country but almost everybody I know is worried about money, the pension system, the future... and there are a lot of homeless people and unemployed people and mentally ill people living in this supposedly 'rich' country. 

There's been natural extinction events and extreme climate change before humans were around. But we are definitely contributing to the problems.

Nuclear Power is a good solution to our energy problems in theory, but in reality some of the facilities are not properly managed or maintained which can lead to accidents. Like all companies they sometimes cut costs in areas they shouldn't.



Edited by King Only - May 20 2013 at 14:59
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